Quilt Block Advisor – what’s that?

Remember this on the Janome MC9000? Well, Quilt block advisor got an upgrade on the Janome Continental M7. Unfortunately the Janome MC9000 was before my time with Janome so I don’t know first hand what it did. But I have put the PC Application pack which comes standard with the Janome M7 – through its paces and it gets a thumbs up from me.

So how does it work?

• You install the PC Application pack onto your PC. I did this and opened Quilt Block Advisor – pic above.

• There are currently 6 blocks to choose from: 9 patch; Mosaic; Lemon star; Log cabin. Grandma’s garden and baby blocks. Mmm yes, the lemon star block makes me smile…..should be lemoyne star but I put a lemon print fabric on the back of my block in tribute to the “renaming” of this block?! haha See pic below.

 

• I picked the “lemon” star, inputted the size block I wanted and then the software automatically calculated the exact size I would need for each of the 3 shapes I would cut for my block. No math!! Pretty clever really.
• I obviously needed to cut 4 each of 2 different colous for the star – A1 and A2; 4x squares for the corner stones B and 4x triangles C for the sides between the star points.

I printed this on my printer

I also printed page 2 which is the actual size templates – 1/4 inch seam allowances included. I then cut them up and used to cut my fabric pieces. All the guesswork done – real easy.

• I then pieced my block using the O foot without the guide – included with the Janome M7
• Next up was the quilting: I stitched in the ditch with 2 different decorative stitches around each ray of the star. I used Madeira mulitcolour for the one and Madeira solid poly thread for the other. I also ditch quilted using the Acufeed Flex Ditch Quilting foot in the ditch betwen my block and border – with matching yellow Madeira thread.
• I also used the QR ruler work foot (included with the Janome M7) + 2 of the Janome Sew Comfortable quilting templates/rulers for circles and Spin-E-fex in the corner squares and triangles. I used a pale yellow invisible thread (Wonderfil Invisifil) for this.

Now I’m itching to try out the other 5 blocks on offer in the Quilt Block Advisor! As usual time is my enemy……….

How do you make time for doing the really fun things like sewing up quilt blocks? Are you disciplined enough to carve out some scheduled time? Or do you get up early when it is quiet with no interuptions for sewing and quilting? Or are you lucky enough to have lots of time to putz away in your sewing room to your heart’s content?